War is fascinating as well as appalling, and despite my abhorrence
of the violence and destruction that is the essence of warfare
I have been studying it in one context or another virtually my
entire adult life. In the course of that study, I developed an
interest in irregular warfare, particularly in the context of
revolution. This work brings together in one place some of the
results of the teaching, research, and writing I have done in
the field over more than thirty years.

In 1986 I had the opportunity to give a series of six lectures
at Obirin College in suburban Tokyo. Those lectures and the published
papers and research on which the lectures were based provide the
core of this work. Some editing has been done on the previously
published essays for stylistic reasons or to avoid repetition.
Footnotes and a few textual references have also been added to
draw the reader's attention to relevant works of particular merit
published after the research for each essay was completed. In
addition, a few alterations resulted from shifts in my own interpretive
views over time. Finally, I have included a short introduction
before many of the essays to provide some insight into the circumstances
in which each was originally written or published.

The underlying theme of these collected essays is the changing
nature of contemporary warfare and, in particular, the significant
changes evident in revolutionary war. The focus is a contrast
between two American wars. In the first, which began in the Philippines
in 1899, a small army of American professionals, augmented by
volunteers and Filipino auxiliaries, defeated the forces of the
Philippine Revolution under Emilio Aguinaldo. In the second, the
starting point of which can still be debated, a much larger American
military force of immense power fought against communist revolutionaries
in Indochina, with the greatest period of American involvement
coming in the late 1960s. These two case studies, and the contrasts
between them, form the basis for a critique of a number of conclusions
that have become ingrained in American thinking about past and
present military affairs.

Many of the lectures and articles contained in this work were
originally aimed at one of two very different audiences. I wrote
some with my professional colleagues in history and the social
sciences in mind; I hoped that others would be read by individuals
within and outside of the military who might at some point be
responsible for decision making within the arena of foreign and
military affairs. From as early as I can remember, I have viewed
history as an applied study, in which the adoption or rejection
of the conclusions and interpretations of historians can have
significant consequences for institutions and the people who direct
them. What one concludes about the past, sometimes even the terms
one uses to describe it, can help or hinder people in their attempts
to define and deal with the problems of the present. To ignore
the relevant, applied dimension of history in favor of more antiquarian
interests may well be safer for the scholars involved, but at
times it may also represent scholarly behavior that borders on
the socially irresponsible.[1]

The U. S. Army has a long history of fighting against irregulars
in a variety of situations and places. In the course of the 19th
century, for example, it engaged a variety of Indian groups from
Florida to the Pacific coast, as well as Mexican guerrillas, Confederate
raiders, and Filipino revolutionaries. In virtually every case
the army was successful, although at no time did the army's combined
experience in operations against irregulars lead to the development
of either doctrine or any less formal codification of the lessons
learned. Nevertheless, although each campaign seemed to begin
and end in virtual isolation from the army's previous experience,
the army dealt successfully with each irregular enemy to accomplish
whatever mission had been set for it. By the end of the century
many of the members of the army's officer corps seemed particularly
well prepared to engage in the difficult task of pacifying the
Philippines. This late-19th century experience of the army is
the point of focus for Part I of the study which follows (Chapters
2-4).

In Vietnam, over a half century later, a very different army
with a very different officer corps fought a campaign that proved
even more frustrating than that in the Philippines. The contrast
between the army's campaign in the Philippines and that in Vietnam
is striking, and one can learn much more about irregular warfare
in the 20th century by focusing on the differences, as is done
in Chapter 5, than by the facile comparisons that have often dominated
the literature. American forces in Indochina were incredibly well
endowed with equipment, and the logistical support they received
was truly amazing, particularly given the vast distance between
the field of battle and the base of supply in the United States.
The American military in Southeast Asia was equally well endowed
with the tools of its trade. Both the technological complexity
and the firepower of its weapons would have strained the imaginations
of its counterpart decades before in the Philippines. In the end,
however, the American military did not succeed in Vietnam. It
proved incapable of achieving the national goal of establishing
a stable, non-communist government in the South despite its success
in destroying both regular and irregular units of the enemy's
military forces. Part II of this study (Chapters 5-8) focuses
on the Indochina War and, in particular, on some of the misconceptions
that have made understanding it so difficult.

Part III (Chapters 9 and 10) represents an attempt to place
the army's experience with irregular warfare into a broader historical
context that will be useful for readers looking to the future
as well as the past. Warfare of all types has changed significantly
over time, and the changes in revolutionary warfare outlined in
Chapter 9 help to explain the tendency toward stalemate or, at
the very least, the increase in the level of destruction preceding
the victory of one side over the other in revolutionary conflicts
such as that in Vietnam or Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, given the politicization of much of the thinking
on topics relating to revolutionary and other forms of irregular
warfare, arriving at an understanding of the phenomenon is extremely
difficult. Self-serving, ultimately self-deceiving concepts and
terminology mislead both civilians and the military. The deception
is particularly apparent in much of the writing about terrorism,
in which terrorists are often defined more by their goals than
by their actions. The problems with such an approach are the focus
of Chapter 10. The final section of the book (Chapters 11 and
12) comments on the broader problems associated with conceptual
confusion, not only as it applies to irregular warfare, but also
as it concerns nuclear deterrence and the nature of war itself.

Controversy is at the heart of modern war. War would not take
place if the disputes between two sides holding opposing views
were resolved peacefully instead, and writing about such controversial
events presents certain dangers for the historians who engage
in it. From start to finish, a war, virtually any war, raises
a number of questions that often remain undecided long after the
fighting has ended, even long after all the participants who survived
the war have died. People debate the origins of the conflict and
the justice of each party's respective cause. They engage in various
disputes over the nature of the war, the relative merits of the
participants and their leaders, and a host of other topics capable
of engaging the passion as well as the intellect of authors and
readers alike.

The subjects treated in this book are no exception. Both the
war in the Philippines and that in Vietnam were highly controversial
at the time they were fought, and they have remained the subject
of intense debate. Although a tendency has existed in much historical
writing to strive for consensus in interpretation, all historical
debate can not be resolved by the synthesis of antagonistic views.
Some conclusions are not compatible with the data, while others
are, and one responsibility of the historian is to identify interpretations
that fail the test when subjected to critical analysis. Although
historical truth may never be more than tentative, it still exists
in the sense that certain conclusions fit the facts better than
others.

The fit between an interpretation and the data behind it is
often less important than what individuals want to believe. For
that reason alone readers will find conclusions that are controversial
in virtually every chapter of this book, but that is to be expected
given the nature of the subject matter. Criticism of historical
acts and actors is criticism of people who often have both the
desire and the ability to defend themselves. They respond by writing
their own version of history or, in the case of censorship, by
repressing versions they dislike.

As Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn told a Time interviewer in
1989, "Some people distort things consciously, others just
don't take the trouble to check their sources."[2] Solzhenitsyn was speaking of journalists,
but he might well have been talking about many of the people who
have written about the war in the Philippines or Vietnam. In the
chapters that follow, I have tried very hard to avoid distortion,
but I know that continuing controversy is inherent in writing
about the topics covered here.

The experience of Capt. John R. M. Taylor provides an excellent
example of the difficulties one may face in writing the history
of a controversial conflict. During the war in the Philippines,
Taylor had been detailed to receive and translate documents captured
from the Filipino revolutionaries. In 1901 he was transferred
to Washington to work in the Bureau of Insular Affairs. There
he proposed to write "a history of the relations of the United
States with the Philippines,"[3]
and after gaining official approval he began work on his project
in 1902. By 1906 Taylor's two volume history, with three volumes
of accompanying documents, had been set in galleys. At that point,
however, Secretary of War William Howard Taft decided to defer
publication. He did not want Taylor's history published on the
eve of a congressional election, believing that Taylor's defense
of the army would rekindle political issues that had just begun
to subside.

Reluctant to abandon the project, General Clarence Edwards,
chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, initiated a second attempt
to publish the work in 1909, only to have publication again deferred
by Taft, then President-elect, who had his secretary write Edwards
to say that he was "quite willing not to have the matter
published" if the general thought best.[4] By that point both Taft and Edwards had received
a long and extremely critical letter about Taylor's history from
James A. LeRoy, an independent scholar to whom Edwards had sent
the first two volumes for review. LeRoy had been Taft's secretary
in the Philippines and was working on his own history at the time
he reviewed what Taylor had written. LeRoy was emphatic in his
view that Taylor's work "should not be published as it is."[5] The Bureau then abandoned
Taylor's project, and its five volumes remained unpublished until
1968, when the U. S. National Archives made a microfilm copy available.
Three years later a private foundation in the Philippines funded
the printing of a limited edition of Taylor's work.

Capt. Taylor paid a severe penalty for his attempt to write
the history of a highly controversial event. A victim of political
censorship, he died never knowing how important his work would
become to a future generation of scholars. Unfortunately, authors
in the employ of government are not the only people to suffer
censorship when writing about controversial subjects. Rejection
by journal or book editors can also be a form of censorship when
the reasons for rejection are political rather than scholarly.

In 1971, when I attempted to publish a manuscript contrasting
the war in Vietnam with that in the Philippines I found my efforts
frustrated by such partisan responses. Several liberal, anti-war
referees and editors did not find my view of the Philippine campaign
sufficiently critical of the army and the United States, while
referees and editors with a more pro-war or conservative orientation
found my comments on the American effort in Vietnam too critical.
My favorite rejection, written the same day my manuscript arrived
at the journal and dated June 30, 1972, said "the President's
news conference of last evening could, I hope, further reduce
interest in the type of article you have written." As was
the case with Capt. Taylor's work, my manuscript was eventually
published in the Philippines.[6]

Historians writing about controversial topics often face other
hazards as well. When emotions and individual reputations are
involved, controversies can get heated, as I learned on more than
one occasion. In 1981, for example, I had the temerity to write
The New York Review of Books to note that Gore Vidal had
grossly overestimated the number of Filipino deaths during the
Philippine-American War. The figure of 3,000,000 dead claimed
by Vidal was preposterous, and the source that he cited had actually
listed the number of dead as 300,000. To my surprise, Vidal proceeded
to place the blame for his error on "either" the authors
or the publishers of a book he had once reviewed for having "added
an extra naught," demonstrating in the process that his actual
source was not the one he had cited. He attempted to dismiss my
criticism by implying that I was a military apologist of some
sort because I had presented a paper at a U. S. Air Force Academy
history symposium. No matter how many Filipinos had actually been
killed, Vidal seemed determined to stick to his conclusion that
"our policy in the Philippines was genocide," asserting
that "if we had to kill the entire population we would have
done so."[7] In a second
round of the correspondence Vidal accused me of being "disingenuous--to
use a tactful word" and a peddler of "neo-manifest destiny
nonsense."[8] Obviously
a thick skin is helpful when one becomes involved in historical
controversy. In such situations the degree to which bias triumphs
over logic and data may only be exceeded by the venom unleashed
when errors are revealed.

If we are to understand history, however, we must face the
facts and allow the data to influence our thinking. Many of the
chapters included in this book have as their primary goal the
destruction of flawed conclusions by the presentation of well-documented
facts in logical order. When new or better information can be
used to demonstrate errors in what I have written, my work should
obviously be revised. Over the years I have altered my own thinking
on various points to make it consistent with new data. All I ask
here is that my readers be willing to do the same.

[1] For an articulate
presentation of the argument regarding the importance of relevance
see Howard Zinn, "Knowledge as a Form of Power" and
"What is Radical History" in The Politics of History
(Boston, 1970), 5-14 & 35-55.

[4] William W. Carpenter
to Edwards, January 21, 1909, Records of the Bureau of Insular
Affairs, 2291-58, U.S. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

[5] James A. LeRoy to
Edwards, January 12, 1909, William Howard Taft Papers, Library
of Congress, Washington, D.C. For an overview of the 1908-1909
decision see John M. Gates, "The Official Historian and the
Well-Placed Critic: James A. LeRoy's Assessment of John R. M.
Taylor's The Philippine Insurrection Against the United States,"
The Public Historian, 7 (Summer 1985), 57-67 and Farrell,
397-404.

[7]The New York Review
of Books (December 17, 1981), 69. The paper presented at the
Air Force Academy symposium to which Vidal referred is included
here as Ch. 3, and readers can judge for themselves the validity
of Vidal's criticism.